Re: [matplotlib-devel] my $0.02 on MEP13

[Todd <tod...@gm...>]

On Feb 8, 2013 11:14 PM, "Benjamin Root" <ben...@ou...> wrote:
>
> Just a crazy thought, but why are we trying to treat "title" and such as
properties?  When I think of properties for matplotlib, I think of
edgecolors, fontsize, and linestyles.  Why don't we solve that problem
first?

In my mind there are several reasons.
First, I personally see things like "title" as properties as well. I can
see why not everyone would, but that would seem to me a reason to keep the
setter functions at least in some cases rather than a reason to not
implement properties.

Second, it is more consistent. Users wouldn't need to remember on a
case-by-basis whether to use a setter or a property.

Third, it would require making sure the API is clan and consistent behind
the scenes.  The more complex setters like title would just be wrappers
around the properties or property functions, so there would need to be ways
to access the individual arguments on their own.

That being said, it would be possible to implement properties in stages,
with simpler ones done first and more complex ones done later.

However, there are three reasons I did not include this in my proposed
plan. First, it would mean we lose consistency, perhaps for a few releases.
Second, it could lead to the API breakage being split over several releases
rather than happening all at once. Third, if we do the behind-the-scenes
cleanups first then this isn't an issue to begin with since complexities
will already be dealt with.